The present invention relates to an image editing apparatus, an image pickup apparatus, an image editing method, and a program for creating a so-called album by using image data captured by a plurality of image pickup apparatuses.
Recently, a still camera and a video camera for recording captured still-image data and moving-image data to a recording medium, e.g., a disc medium, a tape medium, and a solid-memory medium, has been generally widespread, and users have been able to easily enjoy the image capturing.
For example, many people capture images from a still camera and a video camera at an athletic competition, various events, an amusement park, and a tourist resort.
In accordance with the improvement of such an environment that a general user can easily enjoy the still image or moving video image at home, various services, such as distributing services of the moving image and the still image or photographing service at an amusement park, are proposed or are realized. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-148822 discloses a technology of a photographing service.
The captured image data is collected and, then, can be edited in a style of a so-called photo album or video album, thereby increasing enjoyable chances of using the captured image by a user.
For example, upon creating an album which collects still images, it is considered that an interesting album having various images can be created by using images captured by a plurality of photographers or a plurality of image pickup apparatuses, instead of the collection of only images captured by a single person.
Further, for example, an image captured by a general user and an image captured by a photographer (professional photographer) are combined, thereby creating an album. Thus, the album has a combination of images captured by the professional photographer with high quality and a bird's eye view and of private images captured by the general user. In an athletic competition of an elementary school, as an example thereof, the general user normally captures main images of his/her child and, particularly, during a sport, he/she captures zoomed-up images of only his/her child in many cases. Obviously, the above-captured video image is valuable for the image capturing person or family. However, the whole sport can never be understood. On the other hand, the image of the whole sport is captured in the bird's eye view, then, the image of his/her child cannot be large, and the image is not preferable for the image capturing person in many cases.
Herein, when the professional photographer simultaneously captures the image of the whole sport and, then, the general user wants to see the image captured by the professional photographer as well as the image captured by him/her.
In such a case, if the album can be edited by combining both the images, it is considered that the album is greatly useful.
If not the professional photographer but a plurality of general users, such as friends, can collect and edit the individually-captured image data as an album, the album becomes interesting.
However, a system for collecting and easily editing the images captured by both the general user and the professional photographer or the images captured by the general users is not conventionally provided.